Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Last weekend my wife and I took the kids to a double feature
at the local drive-in theater. Sitting in lawn chairs and snacking on
Twizzlers, we watched with eager anticipation as Marvel’s smallest superhero
graced the gigantic screen. While I was a little turned-off by the level of
foul language, Ant-Man proved to be an enjoyable and entertaining entry into
the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.

At its heart, Ant-Man is a story about redemption. After a
short stint in prison, Scott Lang longs to be the hero his daughter sees him
as. He wants to make up for his past mistakes. In a critical scene, Hank
Pym—the original Ant-Man—reminds Scott, “Everyone deserves a shot at
redemption… are you ready to redeem yourself?”

As a Christian, I connected immediately with the idea of
redemption. Like Scott, we’ve all made mistakes. The Bible says, “all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The problem is—we
can’t make up for all our shortcomings. We’re just not capable of redeeming
ourselves. Fortunately for us, the next verse says, “and all are justified
freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans
3:24 NIV). God gave each of us a shot at redemption through Jesus. When Jesus
died on the cross, he paid the price for our faults and failures. "With his own blood... he entered the
Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever"
(Hebrews 9:12 NLT). While it’s still important for us to make amends and repair
the damage we may have done to others, we can be thankful that all our
sins—large or small—are redeemed by Jesus, making him the biggest hero of them all!